


Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

by SkepticalBeliever



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7522687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkepticalBeliever/pseuds/SkepticalBeliever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“One more thing.” Kane glanced up, expression calm in a way that Bellamy had come recognize as Kane’s “sagely advice” look. Bellamy paused in the doorway, waiting. “As I said before, we don’t know how long we have. I intend to spend that time with the people I love most; I suggest,” he smiled gently, almost paternally, “you do the same.”</p>
<p>Or, Kane solicits Bellamy for advice and offers some of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

**Author's Note:**

> This story is sort of a late birthday gift to myself. I wanted Bellarke and Kabby fluff with healthy heaping of Dad!Kane for good measure. This is the end result. 
> 
> On another note, the title is Latin for "while we live, let us live." I think it's an appropriate sentiment for The 100. Also, everything just sounds better in Latin.

It was Raven who first alerted Bellamy to Kane’s plan. He had stopped by her workroom, searching for Clarke, expecting her to be planning their next course of action, and was disappointed to find Raven hunched over a circuit board, utterly alone. She barely glanced up from her work when she muttered that Clarke wasn’t there and that if he didn’t let her focus, she was going to chuck her screwdriver at him. Bellamy chuckled and turned on his heel but paused when Raven called out for him to wait.

She rummaged in her drawers, drawing out a small wooden box, and tossed it to Bellamy. He caught it and turned it over in his hands curiously. She shrugged, “Kane was looking for you. Can you give that to him when you see him? It should meet all his specifications.”

He nodded and made his way back down the corridor towards Kane’s new office as chancellor. He raps his knuckles against the door and does not wait for a reply before he opens it to find his mentor pacing the length of the room, lost in thought.

“Sir? Raven said you wanted to see me.”

Kane glanced up and smiled tentatively. Their relationship had been tense since Pike, since ALIE, but they were trying to mend it. Sometimes, Bellamy entertained the thought that Kane might trust him again. One day. “Yes,” he said in a rush, beckoning him into the room. “Have a seat.”

Bellamy eyed him speculatively but did as he was told, leaning his elbows on his knees, waiting. “What’s this about?” he prompted Kane.

“I was hoping you could offer me some advice.”

“Me? Give you advice?” Bellamy balked, straightening in his seat and scrutinizing his mentor.

His arms were crossed against his chest as he leaned deceptively casually against his desk. His lips pursed in thought, he looked exhausted. Yet, behind his obvious weariness, hope mingled with anxiety glimmered in his eyes. “It’s about Clarke.”

_Ah. There it is._ “What about her?”

Kane sighed. “Obviously…obviously we are going to do everything in our power to stop ALIE’s prophecy from coming true. But there is no guarantee. A few months might be all we have left and I…well, I don’t want to spend those months missing out on the good things in life.”

“Cut to the chase, Kane. What’s up?”

Kane regarded Bellamy for a moment and Bellamy tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. He could feel Kane deliberating, weighing the pros and cons of opening up to him, a question he never would have asked before. He pretended not to feel the sting of his hesitation.

In the end, however, his old faith must have won out, because he said, bluntly, “I’m planning to propose to Abby and I need to know that Clarke is going to be okay.”

Of all the things that he could have said, Bellamy had certainly not expected that. Nor did he expect the slow grin stretching across his face. It was a pleasant surprise.

Kane crossed the short distance and sat beside Bellamy on the sofa, ancient springs groaning with the change in weight. He knit his fingers together, head bowed, as if in surrender. “Abby is the most important person in my life, but Clarke is the most important person in hers. I respect that; it’s one of the things I love most about her.” He smiled, soft and warm. “If Clarke is uncomfortable with my relationship with her mother, I need to know. I don’t want to do anything to strain that relationship; they just got it back.

“You know her better than anyone, even Abby," he continued. "Please, has Clarke given any indication…?” he trailed off, looking to Bellamy with uncertainty. It was an odd look. For the first time in his strange and unexpected friendship with the chancellor, Bellamy felt like the roles of mentor and mentee had been reversed. It felt uncomfortable and yet oddly satisfying.

“You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you?” he asked, mirth laced in his words.

“Can you blame me?” Kane chuckled.

The tension eased between them and Bellamy leaned back in his seat. “Clarke misses her dad,” he said after a moment of thought. “She doesn’t really talk about him but sometimes she gets this look in her eye and she reaches for her wrist where his watch used to be and…yeah. She’s always going to miss him; that’s not going away.” He tried not to think of his own mother and the cloying sense of loss such memories bring. He understood perfectly. “But,” he continued, “that doesn’t mean she hates the idea of her mom moving on.”

“You think so?”

Bellamy smirked, bumping his elbow against Kane’s side. “You guys are good for each other. Only an idiot would think otherwise. And Clarke’s not an idiot. But I think, if you’re really that concerned, you should talk to her about it. She’d appreciate that you cared about her feelings and it’d start your new family off on a good foot.”

Kane nodded. “You’re probably right.”

The silence that stretched between them was (for the first time in weeks) companionable. A smile toyed with the corners of Bellamy’s lips as he imagined how that particular conversation would play out between Kane and Clarke. In his mind, he saw Kane prefacing what he had to say with how important Abby was to him and how much he respected and valued the bond the Griffin women share before easing into his plan of proposing to her mother. Meanwhile, he pictured Clarke to respond in a perfunctory manner, acknowledging Kane’s feelings while cutting swiftly to the chase by offering her blessing.

Thoughts of Clarke reminded Bellamy of his earlier search, and he rose to go. “Is there anything else you need, sir?”

“You mentioned you saw Raven on your way here. She didn’t mention if she’d finished my project for her, did she?”

Bellamy fished into his pockets and withdrew the small box, handing it to the chancellor. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s in the box?”

“The ring,” Kane said, opening the container and holding it out for Bellamy to see. It was simple, unobtrusive, probably fabricated from discarded scrap metal, but it looked delicate and gleamed attractively even in the artificial light of the Ark. Kane turned the ring over in his hand, beaming.

“If that’s all you need—”

“One more thing.” Kane glanced up, expression calm in a way that Bellamy had come recognize as Kane’s “sagely advice” look. Bellamy paused in the doorway, waiting. “As I said before, we don’t know how long we have. I intend to spend that time with the people I love most; I suggest,” he smiled gently, almost paternally, “you do the same.”

* * *

  
Bellamy found Clarke some hours later, perched in one of the lookout towers, with a scrap sheet of paper and charcoal in her hand. The dying light of the sun seemed to be captured in her blonde waves, creating a soft halo around her face. Her lips pursed in thought as she swept her hand across the paper, shading in laugh lines on a man Bellamy was certain he never met but recognized immediately.

Clarke’s resemblance to the portrait was uncanny.

He sat next to her without comment and she did not look up from her work. Her thumb smudged the sharp lines of her father’s cheekbones, blurring them into something softer, as if viewed through a gauzy veil.

“My mom’s engaged,” she murmured without preamble, “or she will be. I think I saw Kane leading her out into the woods for some romantic rendezvous.” She finally looked up and met Bellamy’s concerned gaze.

“You okay?”

She huffed a short, breathy laugh. “I will be. It’s still weird to think of my mom with anyone but my dad but…” She trailed off, glancing out over the horizon, her sharp eyes wistful. “Dad loved my mom, regardless of how things ended. He wouldn’t want her to mourn forever; he’d want her to be happy. She deserves to be happy.”

“So do you, by the way,” Bellamy replied lightly, nudging her shoulder. She grinned at him and, briefly, he recalled a simpler time when it was just the two of them bantering in the light of a merry bonfire, Clarke insisting that he deserved to have fun too and his assurance that he would.

“Funny. Kane said the same thing.”

“He talked to you, then?”

She rolled her eyes. “He asked for my blessing, which I gave, of course, my own issues aside. And then he went off on a tangent about how nothing in life is guaranteed and that we all need to hold onto the good things while we have them and then he mentioned some very specific examples in my own life that—” she broke off, clutching her charcoal-dusted fingers together tightly in her lap. She took a cleansing breath through her nose, slowly exhaling out her parted lips, turned her gaze on Bellamy, who held it steadily, and said, “Let’s just say, he made a valid point.”

Miller would pester Bellamy about it later, barraging him with questions about who made the first move and why the hell it took them so long, none of which Bellamy could confidently answer with the truth. All he knew in that moment in the lookout tower was the way the sunlight glinted in Clarke’s eyes, making them sparkle, the feel of her fingers entwining with his, the taste of her breath ghosting on his lips, and her soft gasp when their mouths finally connected. No, Bellamy had no idea who kissed whom first. Like every other important moment in his relationship with her, it happened concurrently, both of them reaching, searching, and savoring.

He did know, however, who broke the kiss first.

Bellamy pulled away, chuckling when he felt her lips chase his, and leaned his forehead against hers. He felt buoyant and breathless.

“You know I was talking about you, right?” Clarke breathed, her nose brushing against his. “When I was talking about the good things.”

“I did get that impression, yeah,” he huffed. His heartbeat thumped loudly in his ears and he idly wondered if Clarke could hear it too.

“Good,” she murmured, pressing her lips again to his. It was a chaste kiss, the seal of a promise.

They settled against each other, Bellamy with his arm draped over her shoulder, Clarke tucked into his side, and watched the last of the sunset fade from gold to violet and then to black. She felt warm in his arms. Safe. Comforting. For the first time since landing on Earth, Bellamy was not planning. Instead, he was focused on the sound Clarke’s voice as she opened up about her dad, on the way her hair smelled faintly of pine trees when the wind swept through and ruffled her waves, and on the tingling of his palm while she traced patterns into his skin with her fingers.

He made a mental note to thank Kane later because, for the first time since landing on Earth, Bellamy was genuinely content.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All constructive criticism and comments are welcome. If you liked it, don't hesitate to hit that Kudos button. 
> 
> I'm also accepting prompts. Send them to [my tumblr](http://skepticalbeliever1.tumblr.com/).


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